The default laravel/ folder contains nearly 350 files, majority being PHP classes. Everytime a Laravel-based application boots up, PHP has to fetch hundreds of files and parse them.
To improve performance of web applications, many developers utilize PHP op-code caching extensions such as APC, XCache and eAccelerator.
Regardless of whether op-code caching is enabled or not, you can replace the traditional laravel.php with a different Laravel bootstrap file named laravel_boot.php (which acts as a wrapper around laravel_lite.php) to further boost the performance of your application.
The file laravel_lite.php is the result of merging commonly used Laravel and Symfony class files. Comments and other code decorations have been removed to boost PHP parsing. Additionally, some features (like command-line, artisan) have been deliberately stripped away since they are irrelevant in the CGI mode. Therefore, using the highly condensed and optimized laravel_lite.php would greatly reduce the number of files being included and drastically improve PHP parsing speed.
Copy the two files laravel_boot.php and laravel_lite.php to your laravel/ folder.
Open the public/index.php file. Find the line below:
require path('sys').'laravel.php'; Replace the above line with this:
require path('sys').'laravel_boot.php';The diet version of Laravel does not contain Artisan and other command-line based features. These modules were deliberately stripped away to further optimize loading time of the web application. If you need to use the Artisan tool, switch back to regular laravel.php temporarily.
Rants, raves and bug reports are welcome.
Copyright Taylor Otwell http://laravel.com/
Portions Copyright Max Ehsan http://laravelbook.com/